


but you're my hunger

by ssuppositiouss



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Black Paladin Keith (Voltron), Blood Drinking, Dubious Consent, Heavy Angst, Lack of Communication, M/M, Mutual Pining, Red Paladin Lance (Voltron), Suicidal Thoughts, Thoughts of Forced Vomiting, Vampire Lance (Voltron), Vomiting, takes place during season 3 before they find shiro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 09:17:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14053764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssuppositiouss/pseuds/ssuppositiouss
Summary: Lance thinks Keith is guilty about his change into a vampire, since Keith is the leader and the mission was his decision. Keith just wants to care for Lance in the only way he knows how.





	but you're my hunger

**Author's Note:**

> And I'm back with another vampire!Lance fic. Except this one is a lot angstier than my other one and I wrote it all in one night because this is the kind of darkness that I love about vampires. So this is kind of sad with a lot of attraction and hopefully leaves you thinking? (I have a semi-spoilerish summary at the end if you want to read that first)
> 
> And there's gratuitous flashbacks again, because I can't resist writing those. Every other section is a flashback.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy this as much as I did while writing it! Let me know your thoughts and feelings and everything; they're probably really out-of-character but I tried! :')

He can’t breathe. It grips his insides, choking him, pulling him further into himself, thoughts jumbling into phrases of _need need need_ , so despairing he can’t stand it. It’s dizzying, but Lance forces the desperation aside as he plops onto a seat at the kitchen table. Nothing has been staying down, and it’s gotten to the point that he’s so hungry he’s nauseous, and he’s so nauseous he can’t physically bring anything to his lips, let alone stomach whatever it is he’s trying to force into his mouth.

He knows the solution, but he can’t bring himself to ask.

Hunk’s concerned stare makes Lance regret coming into the kitchen. “You alright, buddy?”

Lance groans out a response, and it must sound as pained as he’s feeling, because Hunk is immediately pulling him upward to search him for injury. “I’m fine,” he tries again, though he feels a little better at Hunk’s care. Hunk can always make him feel a little better. It’s just not enough, when he hasn’t fed for so long.

“You’ve been weird since—”

“I _know_.” Lance wants to moan loudly, wants to act dramatically to detract from all this attention, but he doesn’t have the energy to pretend. He’s _starving_ and he’s tired and it _hurts_ being this hungry and he just wants everything to go back to normal, when hunger was just hunger and his groans weren’t taken this seriously and he could just joke with his friends without them worrying he’s lying about something. (He’d lied before, but they had never been so good at reading him.) It hasn’t been _normal_ in several phoebs, and everything has only become worse after he’d taken the first bite. He gets like this toward the end of each phoeb, the timing like clockwork. He just needs to ask, and he knows it will be fine. . . “But I’m okay, I—”

“You’re not okay,” Pidge announces, slapping her hand onto the table. The noise is startlingly loud. It’s almost as startling as the realization that Pidge has been in the kitchen with them the whole time. Lance doesn’t know when this happened, but he tries to pretend like he isn’t confused, like simple actions aren’t too much for him to process right now. He used to be so observant, used to be aware of his surroundings and his emotions and his friends.

His mouth aches. He feels so dry, like everything in him is going to break, to collapse into tiny pieces not meant to be repaired. _I’m fine_ , he wants to say, _I’m okay_! But all that leaves him is a pathetic whine.

He has no control.

Pidge’s glance is sympathetic, and Lance feels like dying. On top of his own inconsolable feelings he’s making his friends, his makeshift family, feel the same pain he is. They don’t deserve to feel the way they do. He shouldn’t be forcing this onto them. He’d always been so good at hiding how he felt. He had been homesick, not insecure. He had been confident, not compensating. He’s pitifully easy to ready now.

“He really won’t mind,” Pidge murmurs, the worry in her voice much too noticeable.

Lance doesn’t want them all worrying about him, not when, in the grand scheme of things, he’s just a sick and hungry boy and this won’t impact the war they’re fighting. He shakes his head (a terrible idea that only makes him dizzier and sicker) and tries to shove the tempting thoughts aside. One bite and he’d be satisfied. One bite and he’d be normal again.

“He doesn’t mind, Lance,” Hunk repeats, and Lance drags his gaze away from his friends’ eyes.

Keith more than doesn’t mind, and that is the problem.

* * *

When they first discovered what he was, what horrid creature he’d become after his mission on a Galra base near the planet Val-Criha, they had been startlingly accepting. (Lance isn’t even as accepting of his status as they are of him.) Lance hadn’t realized what his newfound strength and unsatiated hunger meant, and the mounting suspicion in Coran’s eyes built until Lance finally broke and demanded they put him in a pod and scan him.

“You’re human.” Allura exhales in relief, smiling at him. “But I think there’s more to this.”

Keith stands behind them, uselessly, arms crossed and eyes trained on Lance until everyone else enters the room. It’s mildly uncomfortable, but the normalcy is something Lance welcomes. He has his suspicions about what happened, but they’re wild theories that can’t be true.

Just because he’s nothing satisfies his hunger, just because he’s stronger and faster and doesn’t sleep anymore, it can’t mean—

“I think it’s time for a history lesson!” There’s some collective groaning before Coran jumps into a story that Lance immediately tunes out, glancing around the room to try and understand what his teammates might be thinking. Pidge seems interested in Coran’s words, eyes wide as she leans forward to listen, and Hunk is definitely not paying attention, smiling at Lance when their eyes meet. Keith is brooding (but what does _he_ have to brood about, when _Lance_ is the one with the mysterious magic and unending starvation which _could mean anything_ except Lance doesn’t think it does), and Allura looks more and more concerned.

Allura continues where Coran leaves off after explaining the planet’s history, and Lance starts paying attention.

“They’ve always fed on the blood of their people for survival.” No. Lance wants to vomit. No no _no_. “The only way to sustain themselves is by themselves, as the saying went. But I’d always believed it was something unique to their species, I never thought it could be _transferred_ to someone. . .”

“It’s actually fascinating, they use each other’s blood to survive”—Lance thinks he might actually vomit, there’s no way they’re saying what he thinks they’re saying—“but they could eat and drink other foods with no revulsion! It’s a lot like the klapterfaks of Altea, no real value since it’s like eating dirt, but still possible—”

“Will you sparkle in the sun, Lance?”

“Do you want to suck my blood?”

Lance feels like he isn’t even there with them. He’s just watching them interact, listening to them talk, but nothing is hitting him like it should.

Allura looks baffled. “The Val-Criha don’t sound like that, nor do they ‘sparkle in the sun.’ Their planet doesn’t have a sun, for that matter, as they rely on the three moons of—”

Pidge snorts, and Hunk quickly explains that it’s another bit of Earth culture.

Lance tries to smile at them, but his insides are churning, and he feels like his head is floating away from him. He can’t believe this is happening, he can’t believe that he’s become _this_. It’s the kind of joke he wouldn’t even want to play on someone because it’s so _wrong_. He’s disgusting. He’s a monster. He’s not even human anymore, what is he supposed to tell his family? How is he supposed to save people from the war when he’s a monster himself?

Allura gives them all a very unimpressed look, though she, Coran, and Keith all seem confused by Hunk’s and Pidge’s references.

“Anyway,” she continues, “when the Galra ambushed them, they did something to alter their feeding habits, their evolution.”

“How is that even possible?”

“Their druids’ magic, definitely,” Coran strokes his mustache thoughtfully. “But they also starved the population to the point that they could only survive on Galra blood. The only way to live was to adapt to that need. They need Val-Criha blood, but they need Galra blood as well.”

Allura clenches her fists, fury lighting her eyes. When she is like this, it is easy to lose focus on anything else except for her. Lance has always had an easy time focusing on Allura, but at this moment, he really can’t look at her. He doesn’t want her looking at him, either. She might notice something is off about him, beyond the new diet (the new loss of his _humanity_ ). “They made it so the planet is completely reliant on the Galra. Even if they want freedom, they cannot survive without Galra blood.”

“So Lance is a Galra vampire?” Keith finally speaks up. He’s been so quiet, and Lance doesn’t know what to make of it. He wants to scream, wants to shake Keith into reacting because everyone has said something now except for Keith and Lance, and Lance is allowed to be silent because he’s the new vampire. He feels his nails digging into his palms, and he startles when he realizes he must have been clenching his hands into painful fists.

“Not exactly.”

“Wait,” Pidge interrupts, all joking aside now that they have been properly chastised and science is involved. “The Val-Criha became reliant on the Galra-Val-Criha hybrids.”

“So Lance just needs a Galra-Val-Criha hybrid?”

“It might be more complicated than that,” Coran murmurs, and his eyes are flitting around the room, building up Lance’s nerves until his gaze settles on Keith. “According to our scans, he’s still human.”

Pidge and Hunk are relentless in teasing—“You’re a _vampire_ , dude!”—until they actually think about what happened, until they realize what it means to sustain life by taking part of someone else’s. The room quiets quickly after that, and the feeling that this all could have been a joke fades.

He feels like he’s drowning. Everyone’s words are muffled in his ears, mouths moving as they point and talk and shout.

“So we’ll just take turns feeding Lance until we fix this.” Keith’s voice cuts through the fog. He sounds irritated, and he storms out of the room before Lance can even try to understand what’s running through Keith’s mind.

(He later finds it was guilt, guilt that Keith had let Lance go to that Galra base alone, that he hadn’t been a capable enough leader to prevent the change from happening. _Shiro wouldn’t have let this happen to you, Lance. This was all me._ )

“That’s not a bad idea,” Hunk agrees. “If he’s human he needs human blood.”

Coran seems like he has more to say, but he doesn’t push the subject further. Maybe he and Allura are glad they don’t have to deal with this, won’t have to put up with this new awful monstrous vampire Lance. Would it be easier if he didn’t feed at all?

Pidge nods and claps a hand on Hunk’s arm. “You go first.”

Lance wants someone to blame, but he can’t. It’s no one’s fault but his own.

* * *

He shouldn’t be here.

It’s such a strange thing to focus on, the blue of Keith’s veins. Keith has always been pale, and it’s so easy to see the blood pulsing under his skin after a particularly rough training day (when his heart is racing and his blood is pumping and the smell is overwhelmingly _there_ ). His eyes follow the pattern of Keith’s vasculature, his gaze narrowing at the curves of his body and where the vessels, too, curve under his deliciously white skin.

He hates that he notices this now, hates that he’s alone in these strange observations, hiding in the entryway of the training deck like a creep.

He knows he could be training, too, but after the initial fiasco where he underestimated his own strength and very nearly broke Hunk’s leg, he doesn’t trust himself in here anymore. Instead, he watches as his teammates grow and as he falls farther behind (probably even more than he had been before, because he refuses to utilize this strength when it’s something he steals through blood).

Observing Keith fight like this makes him dizzy, and he feels ready to collapse the longer he breathes in the air that smells so strongly of part-Galra, part-human Keith.

It’s torture, but it’s also a bit of indulgence. The smell hurts him, torments him with its closeness, the flavor so close to his tongue. But it’s also soothing, a presence meant to comfort him and remind him of its potential.

He feels both worse and somehow infinitely better when he’s around Keith.

“Lance!” Keith calls, jolting Lance from his musings as he wipes the sweat from his face with a handful of his shirt. Lance notices the way Keith perks at Lance’s presence, the way Keith’s eyes light up when Lance meets his gaze. He thinks he can hear the increase in Keith’s heartbeat, the glow to his skin when he sees Lance is with him. (His lips upturn just enough that Lance thinks he can read the thoughts _Are you okay? Are you hurt? Do you need me?_ as they run through Keith’s eyes. He’s so desperate for vampire venom, after all.) “When did you get here?”

His fangs seem sharper in his mouth, and he clenches his fists to focus on the pain in his hands instead of the desire pooling inside him. He shrugs, swallows, trying to keep himself from choking on the dryness of his mouth. “Just now.”

“Want to spar?” When Lance doesn’t say anything, he tacks on awkwardly, hopefully, “With me?”

Lance notices these details, the small hints that Keith feels more than he lets on, knows what all the pieces mean if he just connects the points. He wants them to be true, and maybe they could have been, in another reality. Maybe they were getting to that point, if he ponders the possibility long enough. But he forces a smile on his lips and shakes his head. Sparring with Keith or Allura is probably his best chance at normalcy in training, but he doesn’t want to see the looks in their eyes if he loses control.

(He doesn’t want to see Keith’s expression, if he gives into that instinct.)

“Allura’s looking for you,” he lies, words flowing too smoothly from his lips. He hasn’t seen Allura since the previous quintant, but surely she has something to discuss with the Black Paladin.

Keith nods, lower lip jutting out in the smallest of pouts, and Lance tears his eyes away. “Sure.” He deactivates the Black Bayard, then stops moving. There are several ticks of silence, then he clears his throat and stares at Lance, shifting his weight from foot to foot. He exhales. Lance wants to bite him, take his silent offer. “Are you. . . okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Lance’s lips pull into his signature smirk, to try and convey some semblance of normalcy.

“Oh.” Keith flushes pretty pink, and Lance takes a hasty step back, throat suddenly very, very tight. He feels some of his venom pooling in his mouth. Regret for smirking flashes in his mind, but seeing Keith blush makes him want to smile even wider. “Hunk said—”

“He’s overthinking it.” He brushes off their concerns, trying to see how long he can hold his breath while Keith is still blushing. He doesn’t know why he thought it would be a good idea to visit Keith when he’s like this. He misses when they were able to talk, when his hunger and anxiety and lack of control didn’t overwhelm the shaky camaraderie they were building.

“It’s okay if you—” _I want you to—_

“It’s not,” he interrupts, a bit more snappily than he would have done if he’d been in his right mind. “It’s not okay.” He’s not in his right mind; he’s _starving_ and _aching,_ and Keith is _right_ there, _taunting_ him with his soft skin and pulsing veins and blushing cheeks. He’d felt comfortable enough to confide in Keith, once, but the rift between them is growing again. He needs to let it build and overflow.

“Lance. . .”

Lance thinks it sounds like a whine, and maybe it doesn’t but Lance can’t trust what Keith says, when his mind is like this. “Allura’s looking for you.”

“Let’s talk later,” Keith decides. “I’ll run what she says past you.”

Keith’s desire to work with Lance when planning tasks for Voltron helps Lance feel included. He loves playing this role for the team. But when he’s like this, he doesn’t know how useful he can really be.

(He knows Keith wants his company, though. Keith's always looking for him now, and its simultaneously flattering and nauseating.)

“Sure,” he says, smiling. He doesn’t plan on being found.

* * *

Hunk is a lot more sympathetic when it’s just the two of them. He frets that his blood won’t taste good to Lance, worries that Lance is uncomfortable, asks all the right (wrong) questions to check that Lance is feeling okay.

Lance’s hands are shaking as he moves toward Hunk’s neck. He isn’t as hungry as he could be, thankfully, as Allura had warned them of what it could mean if Lance starves too long. The Val-Criha were monstrous, initially, when the Galra subjugated them, separating their people so they were away from each other, giving them mixes of Galra and Val-Criha blood until only the few who could tolerate it were surviving. The story is horrible to hear, and Lance doesn’t want to think of what could happen to him.

He doesn’t like to think about what happened on the Galra base near Val-Criha, and a lot of his memories are foggy after one of the druids had gotten to him. He remembers being fed something. He remembers a beam of purple light. He remembers excruciating pain. He remembers limping back to the Red Lion and passing out at the controls.

He doesn’t know how it all happened, but he knows that he can’t forget the look in Keith’s eyes afterward, can’t forget the way Hunk tried to comfort him with food and he immediately vomited, can’t forget the way he almost strangled Pidge in a hug meant to heal them both.

“Would it be easier if we got the blood into a cup somehow?” Hunk offers, when Lance doesn’t move.

“I need to be as vampire-y as possible,” he jokes, even though saying the word makes him want to gag. “You know.” He says the words as though it doesn’t hurt him to think about them. “I have to _bite_.”

Of course, Lance can’t bring himself to bite. It feels so wrong. It feels like doing this is losing himself. If he does this, isn’t he giving up the only part of himself that was returning back to Earth _normal_?

“Lance. . .” Hunk pulls Lance into a hug. Lance is shaking, and he didn’t realize, but Hunk holds him like he won’t let go, and Lance settles into the warmth.

_I don’t want to bite you, I don’t want any of this._

_This wasn’t supposed to happen._

_Hunk, Mami, Marco, Luis, Veronica, Abuelita, everyone, everyone I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry._

He thinks he cries.

He’s hugging Hunk, and then Hunk is turning up his palm and peeling back his sleeve and offering his wrist for Lance to bite.

Lance thinks he refuses, but maybe he doesn’t, maybe the urge to feed on someone’s blood became too strong for him. He doesn’t know, he can’t remember.

He knows that, whatever happened initially, he ends up biting down. He lets his fangs plunge into Hunk’s soft skin, lets the blood touch his tongue, fill his mouth.

It’s awful.

He wakes up when he tumbles out of a healing pod.

Allura catches him, easily, and she helps him get to his feet as the rest of the team clambers to his side.

He can’t meet their eyes, but he feels their concern, their worry. Even Keith is staring too intently, like he wants to say something but can’t. He tries to remember being placed in the pod.

“Lance!” Hunk grabs him and pulls him into a tight hug. “You started throwing up and crying and I’m sorry I didn’t think I’d—”

“What?” His voice is hoarse, and his head aches despite just coming from the healing pod. He’s hungry. He still feels overwhelmingly empty, but he remembers the taste of Hunk’s blood in his mouth. It tasted like metal, thick and suffocating because he wasn’t supposed to be drinking it, Hunk wasn’t supposed to be keeping him alive.

“He vomited?”

“Is it possible for a vampire to do that when it’s starving?” Pidge sounds curious, but Lance can hear the concern in her voice.

“Maybe he doesn’t want to drink,” Keith offers, and Lance can feel how strongly he’s staring. He wants to tell Keith to stop being weird, but he doesn’t think he has the energy.

Coran seems to be considering a lot of things in that moment, and Lance would’ve made a joke about it if he weren’t so tired. “Number Four. Number Five. Come with me.”

There’s a bit of scuffle, where Keith seems unsure if he’s the second-shortest member of the team (“How am I Number _Four_?”), but then they follow Coran out of the room.

“Are you alright, Lance?” Allura places a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You worried everyone a great deal.”

Lance thinks he wants to vomit again. He doesn’t want them all fawning over him like this, doesn’t want them wasting their energy and attention on someone who can’t even drink what he needs to survive. They have bigger things to worry about, the war, Lotor, finding Shiro. The last thing they need to think about is _him_.

 _Sorry_ , he tries to say, but he’s really tired and he knows they’ll tell him he doesn’t need to be sorry, they want him to feel better, it’s okay. It isn’t okay.

“I’m fine,” he manages.

“We’re looking into what might have caused this, if there’s a way to reverse what happened.” Allura’s hand feels too hot on his shoulder. It’s such a waste of resources if they do this. He wants a cure but he can’t become their priority.

He tries to tell them he thoughts, without making it sound like he thinks he’d be burdening them. He has an image to uphold, and he can’t let them feel his shift in mood.

“It’ll be alright, dude,” Hunk says, because his voice always manages to soothe Lance just a little. “We’ll figure it out.”

Hunk and Allura want to say more, but then they hear the _click_ of the doors opening and they quiet.

Lance smells the blood before it really processes in his head that Coran is coming back into the room. Whatever Coran is carrying—two cups of blood, sweet, delicious, tempting blood—is making his fangs extend, his mouth water in sudden, horrible anticipation.

“Drink this first,” Coran instructs, holding out one of the cups.

Lance hates the way the blood looks in the glass. It looks thicker than he expects, a darker red than he wants to ever see. It’s thinner and lighter where it smears on the sides of the glass, like Keith or Pidge couldn’t have been bothered to give the blood properly.

He isn’t so unobservant that he didn’t know what Coran was planning from the moment he stepped out of the room.

“I don’t. . .” _I don’t want it._ This is someone’s _blood_. It doesn’t matter that he’s not drinking directly from a person. This is—

“Lance, please.”

Allura’s eyes have always been pretty. They’re pale blue and lavender and they shine in a way that always makes Lance’s heart beat faster. When he looks at them now, he feels guilt. He’s wasting their time. They need to be doing more important tasks, and he’s holding everyone in the healing chambers because he can’t do this.

_I don’t want this._

He takes the cup. It doesn’t smell as nice when it’s this close to him, but it shouldn’t matter. His hand shakes as he brings the cup to his lips, and he has to hold his breath to ignore the way the metallic smell clogs his mind.

 _Drink it,_ he tells himself, he _begs_ himself. _Drink_.

The blood touches his lips, and the metallic taste makes him heave.

The cup drops out of his hands (it would have clattered to the floor if Coran didn’t have such fast reflexes) and he’s gagging, he needs that taste out of his mouth, how is he supposed to do this, he can’t even—

He feels Allura’s worried gaze, Hunk’s warm hands rubbing his back.

“Can you try this one?” Coran offers the other glass, voice a lot softer. Lance wants to hurl the cup across the room, wants to bolt off of the castleship and hide away from everyone. He can’t drink this anymore. He can’t do this anymore, he can’t, he can’t. . . “Please?”

He feels their eyes on him, sad and desperate.

He swallows, tries to smile at them. “Why not?”

He feels infinitely more drained as he takes the cup into his hands. It smells a lot better than the other one did. Maybe he can handle this, maybe it’ll be okay, maybe he can. . .

 _Drink_.

This time, when the rim of the cup (just slightly spattered with blood) touches his lips, he pours the contents eagerly down his throat.

The blood is cold and stale and definitely doesn’t taste as if he’s just bitten someone (though who is he to make comparisons). But it’s delicious, like he’s eating food again. It’s like nothing he’s ever tasted. It’s better. It’s all he could ever want. He wants more, he needs more, he feels some energy returning to his body from the small amount he’s intaken in that moment. It isn’t enough.

Lance remembers, then, that everyone is watching him.

He almost drops the glass again—he doesn’t, because he wants to savor every last drop of this—and he licks his lips and tries to smile. It feels forced on his lips, but there is a definite change in energy in the room. Lance feels stronger than he has in a long time, and the difference in his mood alters how the others feel as well.

Hunk looks like he’s going to cry. Lance wants to sag into his friend in relief. He feels a little more like himself, like he hasn’t felt in the movements that have passed since his mission near Val-Criha.

It hasn’t quite hit him that he drank someone’s blood.

(He fully processes the thought later, when he’s alone in his room, dark thoughts overtaking him as he wonders if it’s even worth it to live like this.)

“Did it work?” Pidge bounds into the room. Lance takes note of the way her left sleeve is rolled up, the bandage around a cut on her wrist. He can smell the drying blood on her arm. He swallows and looks away.

Keith is following Pidge, arms crossed and movements awkward, like he wants to see how Lance is doing but doesn’t want to be seen doing so. His expression softens when he sees that Lance looks better (he feels better, after all, so maybe some of the color has returned to his cheeks, maybe he’s standing at his full height again).

“It worked,” Keith breathes, unfolding his arms, obvious relief melting his stance. Around his left wrist, too, is a bandage. He isn’t wearing his jacket, just his black short-sleeved shirt, so Lance gets the full brunt of the smell of Keith’s blood.

Coran is launching into an explanation, but Lance can’t tear his eyes away from Keith, tear his mind away from where his thoughts have headed. Keith seems oblivious, has started rubbing at the bandage on his wrist.

 _—Galra blood_ and _human blood—_

_—don’t know why we didn’t think of that right away—_

_—so, what, only_ Keith _can feed him now?—_

Lance knows his fangs have extended, knows his eyes are narrowed at Keith’s wrist. He doesn’t move, he has more control than that, but the urge is there. The urge to give into instinct and pounce on Keith and sink his teeth into Keith’s neck is taunting him.

_—Val-Criha survive on the hybrids of their species, it makes sense—_

_—I feel so useless; we can’t help him, he just—_

He doesn’t want to drink blood, he doesn’t want this at all. He already drank blood though. He’s one of them. He’s not one of them. He’s—

Lance raises the glass back to his eager lips, swiping his tongue across the inside, where a little more of Keith’s hybrid blood graces his mouth.

Maybe he could have handled drinking blood given to him in a cup, distant from the source. He can pretend it’s a strange soup, a weird protein shake, a new red food goo. But as the others continue to talk, he feels the energy draining from him quickly, like it isn’t enough to take someone’s blood like this.

 _—Lance! I_ _t_ was _working, we saw him—_

_—drinking from a glass shouldn’t have made a difference—_

_—you can't tell me it has to be right from the vein—_

It’s a cruel joke, Lance realizes bitterly. He’s going to have to bite Keith, after all.

* * *

It’s difficult to determine if the Red Lion wants a paladin driven by instinct or by humility. He seemed to accept Lance after Lance accepted Keith as a leader (he’s the right-hand man, the support, a secret strength to Voltron, something of which he was once proud but now he feels he cannot handle), but Red is back to acting temperamental again, and Lance assumes it’s because right now he isn’t following his instincts at all. He talks with Keith nearly every night, after all, planning for Voltron or just talking, until Keith falls asleep (since Lance himself no longer needs sleep).

His head constantly aches, and his body is creaky and sore and awful all the time.

Blue would have tried to soothe him, but Red turns up his nose, as if to say, _there’s an easy solution_.

And there is a solution, and it could be easy, Lance won’t deny that.

 _Do it, Paladin_.

The thing is, taking Keith’s blood is not easy, not after last time, and he doesn’t know if it will be worse for him or for Keith if this continues. They both want it, he knows that, but he doesn’t know how much of it is truth and how much is the from the haze of the feeding and the guilt.

But, as they fail to form Voltron for the third time, and he hears the angry complaints of his teammates, shrill to his aching head, he knows something has to change.

* * *

After they first discover Keith’s role in maintaining Lance’s life, everything is awkward. Lance considers himself an expert at reading and diffusing situations, but there’s a tenseness in the air that he can’t disseminate. And, because Keith is the other involved party, everything becomes more uncomfortable, more out of his realm of control.

“He’s _Keith_ , I can’t just _drink_ from him!”

Keith rolls his eyes. “Why not?” He’s the only one of them standing, and everyone else is splayed across the couch comfortably. “You were fine drinking Hunk’s blood!”

There’s something drastically different between drinking from his best friend’s wrist once in a while and only being able to drink from Keith’s all-too-tantalizing neck regularly. Lance hopes Keith realizes that.

What he says instead of all his racing thoughts, though, is “Hunk smells better.”

“I. . . _What_?”

Pidge starts laughing, and Hunk wrings his hands, looking between Lance and Keith.

“You’re. . . _you_ ,” he adds eloquently. “I’m not going to look for you every time I _fancy a snack_.” He says the last part in an Altean accent, so Pidge continues laughing and even Hunk cracks a smile.

“But it’s not just a snack, it’s your _life_.” There’s a fire in Keith’s eyes that he hasn’t seen in a while, but Keith takes a breath, rubbing his thumb and index finger together as he shuts his eyes and tries to calm down.

“Not really my problem,” Lance says lightly, relaxing into his seat on the sofa. Talking to Keith is draining, a reminder of how he isn’t normal. He doesn’t want to think about that, not when he’s at peak energy, when he’s feeling better than he has in a long time.

If he wants to forget about how he got to this point, he has a right to do so. If he chooses not to think about the blood he drank and the need to do it again, he has a right to do so

“Lance.”

“It’s _not_!”

Keith seems frustrated, and he glances at Pidge and Hunk before staring much longer at Lance. “Can we. . . talk. . .”

Maybe they all sense how serious Keith is about to get, but Lance gives Hunk a desperate look. _Don’t you dare leave._

“Let’s let them talk!” Hunk declares, louder than the situation calls. He grabs Pidge’s arm and drags her from the common area, and Lance glares at his friend’s retreating back as he is left alone in a situation he definitely isn’t ready to deal with just yet.

He can hear their squabbling fade as they leave the area, and he sighs and changes his position on the sofa as Keith sits down near him.

“Keith,” he says, purposefully dramatic to try and lighten the growing tension between them.

Keith nods, distant, rubbing his thumb and index fingers again, as he looks everywhere but at Lance. The silence between them builds and builds, and Lance is about to protest the need for this _talk_ when Keith blurts, “I’m sorry!”

Lance’s mind short-circuits. Keith is _apologizing_?

His voice is soft, like they’re back on the storm planet again, when Lotor was tailing them and they started growing into their roles in the Black and Red Lions.

“I messed up, and I haven’t talked to you about it.” Keith is biting his lip. Lance somehow feels torn between biting Keith where he’s starting to draw blood and engulfing him in a hug, neither is best for the situation between them at the moment. He feels so out of place. “You shouldn’t have been alone on Val-Criha.”

Lance almost forgets to breathe, then. He doesn’t know if he wants to talk about this, if he wants to think about what happened. “It wasn’t your—”

“We never go alone on missions,” Keith mumbles, and it’s more like he’s talking to himself than to Lance, but Lance has excellent hearing now, so he hears Keith say, “but you sounded so sure and you looked, you looked—I knew you _could_ , you’re _Lance_ , and you—”

“Hey. . .” Lance places a hand on Keith’s shoulder, and he smells the blush on Keith’s cheeks before he sees it, and he replays Keith’s words, lets them synchronize with the expression on Keith’s face now, the way his heart races when he looks into Lance’s eyes.

Lance knows the look on Keith’s face. It’s the same look he himself has directed at Nyma, and Allura, and Florona, and Jenny from the Garrison.

He swallows and looks away.

Keith is guilty. He’s guilty about sending Lance on the mission, guilty about how everything turned out. He regrets how his decisions led to this, and he wants to make amends. The perfect opportunity fell into his lap, since Lance’s survival is utterly dependent on the only Galra-human hybrid that they know exists in this universe.

An unknown feeling bubbles inside him, and he wants to shove it away. He wishes the situation were different, that Keith had talked to him before all of this.

Keith reaches forward and touches Lance’s cheek, so they’re looking at each other. Keith shivers when he touches Lance, and Lance almost wants to sink into Keith’s touch. “Lance, you can’t _die_.”

“I don’t want your—”

“But you need—”

“Keith!”

“ _Lance_!”

Keith moves too quickly for Lance to stop him, jumping up from the couch and away from Lance, unsheathing his blade and pointing it at his neck. “If I cut here, you’ll drink?”

_If I cut here, you’ll live?_

Lance stares, follows where the silvery purple tip of the blade touches Keith’s neck. Keith’s eyes are wide, his heart racing and racing and racing. Lance hates that he can hear it, hates that he _knows_.

“Don’t,” he says, trying to sound calm when his thoughts are frantic, jumbled. He stands up, so he has his half-inch of height over Keith. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. He doesn’t want to drink from Keith, doesn’t know if he can resist if Keith’s blood is in the open, doesn’t know how to stop the bleeding if Keith cuts too deep.

Keith’s hand is shaking, but he holds his gaze steady. Their eye contact makes him nervous, and his own heart is racing a bit more than he’ll admit.

He can never tell what Keith is thinking, if his impulse decisions are ones he’ll carry through. (Unfortunately, he’s grown to know Keith well enough through their late night talks that he knows Keith can be an idiot and will definitely cut his own neck if it means Lance will drink from him.) He wishes Pidge and Hunk had stayed to eavesdrop, that they can run in and stop Keith before Lance has to do it.

Lance stares at Keith for a little longer, so he isn’t sure how much time has passed. He sees Keith start to shift on his feet, and he takes his opening.

He moves faster than he ever could before—now that he’s a vampire, he realizes bitterly—hand wrapping around Keith’s hand quickly enough that Keith drops his knife in surprise (Lance isn’t sure if his hold is too tight, he hasn’t practiced enough, but he’s sure Keith can handle it). Keith’s surprised gasp makes Lance lose some of his coordination, but he manages to move forward and pin Keith back to the couch.

He has his hand on Keith’s, still, pressed near Keith’s face as he gazes up at Lance, and Lance’s other hand is by Keith’s shoulder. He’s somehow landed with one knee between Keith’s legs and the other pressing uncomfortably against the edge of the sofa. Keith flushes pink at Lance’s touch.

Before he can even think to adjust their positions, Lance grumbles, “I hate this sofa.”

Keith blinks up at Lance, his lips pulling into a slow and unsure smile before he starts laughing. “You’re so. . .” Lance feels his own expression relax as he watches Keith laugh, a smile tugging at his own face. The common room’s wraparound sofa has always been useful, except when he and Keith are about to fight about something.

Keith could easily push Lance aside. This position is a strange one, for both of them. They’re too close, their bodies pressed too near each other. They’re both stronger than they’re acting right now.

Neither of them cares.

“Don’t do that again,” Lance whispers, though he doesn’t want to stop Keith from laughing. If he could sit in the common room and laugh with Keith all day, he thinks he wouldn’t mind it at all. Keith’s smile slowly fades.

Lance is still holding Keith’s hand, but Keith reaches up with his other hand to pull Lance toward him. He loses some of his balance, pressing his knee harder against Keith, tightening his grip on Keith’s hand.

“I need. . .” Keith clears his throat, biting his lip before looking up at Lance in determination. “ _Voltron_ needs you.”

Keith smells so nice. Lance feels some of his resolve slipping as Keith pulls his mouth toward Keith’s neck. He’s the slightest bit uncomfortable by both the position and the thought of what’s about to happen, but he knows he’s going to give in when he feels the heat radiating from Keith’s skin, when he hears Keith’s breath hitch as his lips brush lightly against Keith’s neck. He knows they both need this.

“ _Lance_ ,” Keith groans, tugging on Lance’s hair, and Lance _plunges_ his fangs into Keith’s neck.

* * *

“This has gone on for long enough.” Allura gives him a pointed look, one that once would have made him tremble in his sneakers. Now he feels too tired, too hungry. Maybe it has gone for long enough, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel like it’s been enough time since he’s last fed.

Hadn’t he _just_ pinned Keith against the leg of the Red Lion, pulling away from Keith’s eager gasps much too early, because he couldn’t handle Keith’s feelings, couldn’t handle Keith’s breathy begging (couldn’t handle his own feelings, trembling fingers digging into the soft black of Keith’s paladin suit as he hoisted Keith's legs around his waist and pressed their bodies close)? It’s been maybe a phoeb since then, Lance figures. Not enough time. Not _nearly_ enough time.

“I can’t,” he says, irritated at the sadness and desperation in his own tone.

He can’t feed yet, he _can’t_.

“Let him _help_ you!” Allura calls, but Lance is slipping out of the room before she can continue.

Help him? He doesn’t want this, doesn’t need Keith’s pity or his blood or anything that will perpetuate this horrid life even further.

He almost freezes at the thought, but he shoves it aside. He doesn’t know what he wants, if it’s worth continuing like he is now or if he should end everything now. He can’t go home like this. Maybe they can survive and win the war by sustaining him little by little, but he doesn’t _want_ to show Luis what he’s become, he doesn’t _want_ Veronica asking him how he’s survived until now, he doesn’t _want_ Marco meeting his eyes and turning away in revulsion.

He can’t even imagine his mami’s face without wanting to curl in on himself.

When he drinks Keith’s blood, he feels less like himself. He feels like a bundle of nerves and feelings and instincts that just want to take and take and take, and Keith isn’t in any position to refuse. It makes him feel horrible. He can almost forget that he’s a vampire, in the moments between feeding, when they search for Shiro or rescue planets or try to find a cure to whatever it is that happened to Lance. Everyone treats him normally. He is normal.

(Sometimes Keith will catch his eye, face flushing, small smile on his lips, and Lance wants to melt.)

But as the quintants become movements and the movements build up, so does his hunger. His body moves on its own, and he’s a bit too light-headed to fight as he usually does. He’s still strong, physically stronger than he’s ever been, but he thinks he misses a lot of details he normally catches. He knows he is better than this.

But how much better can he truly be, if he needs someone else’s blood to sustain him?

 _Let him help you_ continues to echo in his mind. Lance thinks he can last a few more quintants.

* * *

The problem is, Keith is more than willing to give Lance his blood. Keith is observant, but he’s the one being regularly affected by vampire venom, and he hasn’t quite noticed the way Lance’s bites render him docile.

He seems happy when Lance comes to him, face flushing pink whenever Lance shrugs and mumbles that it’s time. He offers his blood to Lance often, more often than Lance actually needs, but they spend a lot of time together anyway.

As Keith’s right-hand man, he has to provide a stability that Keith doesn’t really have. Keith seems lonely without Shiro, sad on random nights, and Lance knows he’s a replacement for Shiro (not good enough to be Shiro for Keith), but he does what he can, gives the advice Keith needs before making major decisions, answers questions that Keith doesn’t even ponder before they encounter new species. He stays up with Keith (since he doesn’t need sleep anymore, and when he’s alone he gets sad and homesick), researching possible cures for his Val-Criha ailment, trying to track down Lotor. He does his job well, and Keith seems more comfortable in his role than he had, at first.

Lance wonders if that is why Keith always offers his blood, as if he doesn’t know how to be thankful.

Keith knows Lance doesn’t want to feed, knows it makes Lance unhappy to drink from someone, and he always mutters things, mumbles that it’s fine, that he wants to do this for Lance, _I’d do anything for you, let me do this for you, please, it’s not enough but I really l—_

He says everything so quietly, so quickly, until the words blur together and Lance’s lips are at Keith’s neck and then they’re both lost in the heavy haze of energy and emotion.

Keith is wrecked after their sessions, expression too pleased, smile too wide. It makes Lance weak in the knees, makes him want to stay and hold onto Keith until the high fades for them both.

His heart races at the thought.

It has to be the venom.

(He tested it on Hunk, just a little, to see how much vampire venom really could affect a person. Hunk’s blood tastes like nothing to him. It doesn’t make him nauseous the way it had originally, when he’d been starving, but it certainly isn’t something he’d like to intake regularly, especially when he’s knows the taste of Keith’s blood.

His venom, though, made Hunk smile. “Lance,” he breathed, pressing his wrist back to Lance’s lips. “That felt really nice.”

“That’s creepy, dude.” Lance tried to smile back at his friend, but it just made him feel worse. The realization of this power was a torment of its own.)

Keith regularly offers his blood, but is it because of the venom? Is it because of his guilt? Does he feel obligated because he’s the Black Paladin? How many of his actions have truly been _Keith_?

(He thinks of the way they looked at each other in the common room, the first time, and he shudders. It had been an intimate moment between them, the way Keith intertwined their fingers, the way he threw his head back and pressed his body up against Lance’s, the way he murmured Lance’s name as he exhaled. . .)

He feels numb. He’s trying to get used to drinking blood, especially as the movements pass and his hunger builds and he knows he needs to feed, but he’s torn between his desire to feed and feel what comes with Keith and his blood and his need to retain some of his humanity and not tear the life out of someone’s neck so he can live another few movements.

He can’t keep doing this.

* * *

It’s been a little over a phoeb when every part of him hurts, when his head is too heavy to think. He feels so weak, his mouth achingly dry. He’s been lying in his room, left to his thoughts for too long, and he’s regretting letting it get this far, regretting drinking what he has, regretting making Keith become so desperate to feed him. He’s too dependent on Keith now, too dependent on whatever it is that has grown between them. He’s fed from Keith three times, and that has been too many.

It’s wrong that he let this happen, wrong that he’s surviving as this awful creature.

The longer he does this, the worse he feels. He knows the team sees it, knows they feel it. Their actions as Voltron echo that desperate sentiment, and there’s little any of them can do.

“Lance!”

Keith opens Lance’s door without knocking, footsteps heavy and demanding. Lance gets up from his position of lying on the bed. “Keith.”

“You have to stop hurting yourself. You. . .” Keith isn’t the most eloquent of speakers, and even now, he is at a loss for words, stumbling over what he wants to say though there’s so much passion in his tone. “We’re going to figure this out. It’s taking long, but. . .”

_I’m tired. I’m always hungry. I don’t want this any more than I did before. Please._

“Another quintant,” he says, because he isn’t so cruel that he’d guilt Keith even further. Maybe he’ll feel better in another quintant.

But he doesn’t know if he could handle another quintant of this, and Keith seems to think the same thing.

“Take some now,” he urges. “You’re hurting.”

“I don’t want it.”

“I don’t care.”

It’s playing as it had before, the first time, and Lance notices the pieces falling into place, knows Keith’s actions by now. “I don’t want _you_ ,” he says, unsure if he’s lying, unsure of what he wants.

“I. . .” Keith pauses, hands clenched into fists as he fishes for something to say. His voice sounds hurt. “Voltron needs you.”

Lance sees Keith’s hands moving, knows exactly what he’s going to do because he’s done it before.

He’s across the room before he even realizes his legs have moved, hand in a strong grip around Keith’s wrist. It feels so small in his hand, fragile, like a single squeeze could break him. Keith lets Lance maintain his grip, but he leans forward, so their eyes meet. There’s an intensity in his gaze that Lance has always liked, but now it makes his insides churn, and he isn’t sure if it’s in pleasure or revulsion. He's dizzy from moving so quickly, ready to pass out because he's so tired and he's wasting energy on this.

Lance almost tosses Keith’s wrist aside like it’s burning him, but his body seems frozen. He exhales, stares at Keith, at the blade in his other hand.

“Don’t,” he says, voice quiet but steady. Keith swallows, and Lance hates himself for noticing the way Keith's throat moves. It would be so easy to sink his teeth into Keith’s pale throat. Keith _wants_ him to do it. Lance’s bite has turned him into this, and he’s not going to make it worse.

“Lance,” Keith breathes, “you need. . .”

“Don’t,” he repeats, and there must be something in his voice because Keith drops the knife and is reaching up to caress Lance’s cheek.

He does throw Keith’s wrist out of his grip, then, trying not to acknowledge the hurt expression on Keith’s face, trying to ignore the burning feeling of Keith’s gaze following him as he moves back to sit on his bed.

He doesn’t know how much longer he can survive this. He hates who he is now.

“Lance.” Keith shifts on his feet, unsure. “You know that I. . .”

“You haven’t been yourself since I first bit you.” He’s sure he sounds hollow. He doesn’t know what he’s saying, why he’s admitting to this. “You never cared this much until Val-Criha.”

Keith seems surprised, and his expression is enough that some of Lance’s darker feelings fade. “I just. . . You’ve always been so out of reach. And this Val-Criha thing happened, and it meant we had to talk. Even if you don’t like me, you need me for this, and I can give you something back, since you’ve been helping me through this Black Paladin stuff. I always. . ." He gestures awkwardly. "You know.”

Lance doesn’t know what to say. His thoughts are too jumbled. He knows he and Keith need to sort things out, need to talk about what’s happening between them, what's been building since they found out they were going to be connected by this, since they found out that Keith is Lance's only source of survival. They need to talk, because there's something both of them are missing, and he knows that.

But he’s so tired.

“So. . .” Lance can’t help the wisp of a smile on his lips at the normalcy of Keith’s awkward movements. Any other time, and he’d be poking fun at Keith. “Sit,” he decides.

They can talk after he feeds, after his mind is back in the right place. (He ignores the part of him that says he’s trying to rush their interactions so he can relieve the awful burning of his dry vessels, of his empty stomach, of his aching heart.)

Keith sits near Lance on the bed, heart beating quicker and quicker. “Should I just. . .” He tilts his head to the side, pulls his hair (his stupid, wonderful mullet, inky black hair staining paper white skin) away from his neck. Keith’s scent is so strong, it overpowers Lance’s senses for a moment.

Keith would willingly offer everything to him, because he _likes_ Lance. He’s _liked_ Lance since that first bite filled him with endorphins and venom and all the pleasant feelings that every bite provides. It’s disgusting, watching how this addiction has turned the powerful, untouchable _Keith_ into a boy whose gaze softens too easily when meeting Lance’s eyes.

He thinks he would love it, if Keith’s affection were real.

Lance wanted Keith, _wants_ Keith.

(He still does, he thinks, from the way his heart will pick up its pace when he sees Keith smile, from the way he wants to say the right thing to make Keith happy. But Lance doesn’t _feel_ anymore, not the way he used to. They both deserve something different from how this future has been dealt.)

“This is where you. . .”

Lance swallows, forcing back his overpowering urge to grab his teammate and sink his pointed teeth into Keith’s pliant neck. “Y-yeah,” he mumbles, mouth dry.

He shifts so his mouth is near Keith’s jugular, his fangs brushing lightly against Keith’s soft skin. He knows, realistically, that he can’t _feel_ Keith’s pulse, but he’s sure his own desire thrums inside him at the same pace of Keith’s heart. Their breaths are uneven, but they breathe in synchrony, nervous, anxious, ready.

_Take it take it take it take it take—_

“It’s fine, Lance,” Keith whispers, and his tone is a forced kind of reassuring, but it’s enough.

It isn’t fine, it’ll never be fine. He won’t let it be fine. But Lance will soon be overwhelmed with hunger and emotion far beyond his control, if he leaves things as they are, if he starves himself any longer.

When his teeth (finally) puncture Keith’s skin, he is overwhelmed with how _alive_ he feels. How could he have tortured himself for so long when this ethereal bliss has been at his fingertips the entire time, desperate to prove his feelings and offer himself?

The touch of blood to his tongue rejuvenates him, repowers his mind, energizes his spirit. Keith makes a noise that only serves to excite him, and he pulls Keith closer to his mouth, the blood filling him, making him human again. He sucks on Keith’s skin, knowing well enough that it leaves a mark, grinning at the thought.

It’s disgusting. Keith’s blood is delicious, it’s the most amazing thing he’s ever tasted, it’s the greatest elixir he could have the pleasure of drinking. He wants to devour it, drain it, steal every last drop for himself because it’s the only way he can _live_ as himself, as _Lance_. He wants to vomit it, to force Keith away from him, to keep this horrible being who shouldn’t even _exist_ away.

But he’s alive again.

His fingers find solace in the heat of Keith’s skin as he slides them under Keith’s shirt, pressing into the soft (so breakable) flesh. Keith is clambering onto Lance’s lap, just as eager, just as desperate, and Lance can feel Keith’s cock pressing against him while his fingers trail up to Keith’s hardening nipples.

His fingers itch to touch more.

This always happens. He loves it (hates it), loves how human it feels when they touch. Keith’s fingers tangle in Lance’s hair, and he pulls his neck from Lance’s lips for a moment to whisper something in Lance’s ear.

He’s felt so empty for so long, it’s rejuvenating to be alive, to feel like the human he is (the human he was, once).

He swallows, and no matter how much he wants it to be true, he ignores what Keith says. Keith always spouts lies when he’s pumped full of vampire venom.

Lance captures Keith's lips with his own, savoring the way Keith melts into him, the way the flavors of Keith's blood mix with Keith's tongue, and it's overwhelming and wonderful and not enough, he wants so much from this.

They've kissed once before, but Keith never remembers. The vampire venom is good for something, Lance supposes.

He sucks on Keith's bottom lip, enjoying the heat rushing through his own body at the breathy moan Keith exhales at the movement. (He loves it, he loves this, they both love this, the both want this, want so much.) Lance pulls away from Keith's mouth and moves back to his neck, where he laps at the wound he's created. Keith shudders in his grip, and Lance grins and sinks his teeth back into Keith, relishing in Keith's noises, in the way his body tenses and relaxes in his hold.

" _Lance!_ "

Keith's hands are trembling, nervous as they slide toward Lance's back, underneath his shirt. His hands are hot, their bodies molten as they press together. Keith's warm blood continues to satiate Lance's needs, and he drinks and drinks while the fingers of his right hand tweak Keith's nipple, while his other hand slides toward Keith's waistband. Everything feels so good, so right.

"Lance," Keith breathes, grip weakening, " _Lance_ , I think I l—"

Keith can’t mean it.

 _You’re a vampire_. _You’ll never be alive again. You can’t have this._

It’s with that realization that Lance shoves Keith off of his lap, so Keith lies on his bed, dark hair splayed prettily around his face. Lance feels hollow at the loss of contact. He can’t pull his stare away from the blood leaking from the punctures in Keith’s neck (the blood being wasted).

“Lance. . .” Keith seems lost, his gaze unable to focus on anything, his voice distant but pleased. “You good?”

Lance manages a stiff nod. He feels so warm. So _full_. So _alive_. He hates these intruding thoughts, sullying the experience of Keith’s hot blood filling Lance’s mouth. The taste lingers. The feeling lingers.

He needs more.

“Good.” Keith presses his fingers to his neck. He lets out a shaky breath and a tiny smile. “Good.” He looks up with half-lidded eyes, long eyelashes over pretty (unnatural) violet-gray, and Lance’s heart speeds. Keith is splayed so prettily on his bed, shirt showing his pale stomach, pants deliciously tight on his toned legs. Keith’s eyes flutter shut, his breathing evening out as he falls asleep.

Lance can’t bring himself to leave. He just. Watches. Wants.

(Oh, he wants, wants, _wants_.)

Later, Keith stumbles away, dizzy from the lack of blood and the endorphins in Lance’s venom. He has a pretty smile on his face, mumbling that he’d do it again, Lance just has to ask.

Of course he would.

* * *

His fingers are in his mouth, his thoughts are racing, he just needs to—

But he can’t—

He just _drank blood_ he just drank _Keith’s blood again_ he’s disgusting he’s not even human anymore he _keeps doing this, why does he keep doing this, why can’t he_ stop _doing this_ —

Lance can’t stifle the cry that escapes his throat. He takes his fingers from his mouth and wails, pulling his knees to his chest. His tears run freely. He wants to throw up the blood, to not be this disgusting awful creature, to be normal again.

How can he face his family after everything? How can he return to Earth when _he’s not even human anymore_?

He’s the horrible creature from the fantasy stories. He literally has to take away someone else’s life to continue his own awful existence.

And he knows he’s going to be weak to this, again and again. He won’t be able to live without Keith’s blood, and the smell alone will tantalize him into frenzy, make him lose the semblance of control he likes to think he has. He can’t last another movement like this.

Why does it have to be Keith? Why does it have to be _Keith_?

(He doesn’t want it to be anyone _but_ Keith.)

Instead, he drinks in his own tears and snot, unwilling to vomit, unable to forget how amazing Keith’s blood makes him feel.

He licks the final traces of Keith’s taste from his lips, and he cries.

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilerish Summary: Lance is turned into a vampire-like creature by the Galra on a base near a planet that survives based on feeding of the blood of their own species. Because the Galra are what turned Lance, and Lance is human, he can only survive off the blood of a Galra-human hybrid. Lucky for him, Keith is around, but unlucky for him, they have feelings to sort through that may or may not be clouded by the venom of Lance's bite. Lance knows Keith loves him, but he thinks it’s related the vampire venom and the guilt Keith is feeling, so he tries to drink from Keith as infrequently as possible. Keith, though affected by the venom, has always really liked Lance, and the venom just makes him much more open and impulsive in his affections and desire to give his blood to Lance, who he desperately wants (needs) to survive. Lance definitely doesn’t want to be a vampire and debates not feeding at all, and Keith is kind of guilting Lance to stay alive by unwittingly playing on their attraction to each other.
> 
> I hope this was okay? Let me know how you felt, what you would've changed, if you liked/didn't like things! I love hearing your thoughts!
> 
> catch me on [tumblr](http://ssuppositiouss.tumblr.com)!


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